


the monsters are my only friends

by elliptical



Series: unbecoming jordan hennessy [10]
Category: Dreamer Trilogy - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Chronic Illness, Hennessy Is Her Own Content Warning, Murder, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28059894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliptical/pseuds/elliptical
Summary: The Lace never lied.  Hennessy sickened worse with every encounter; the dream controlled her reality.  The years blurred into a hazy mess of inside-out recollection.  She never slept, and she never woke, and she never won.
Series: unbecoming jordan hennessy [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2052732
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	the monsters are my only friends

The last copy died without breathing at all.

She’d made no memories. She’d spoken no words. She’d crafted no art. She’d chosen no name. She blinked into existence, and she struggled, and she blinked away. No one would miss her; she had not been human enough to miss.

Jordan would care, of course, in the same way she cared for all the copies. She would cry over the pain and the unfairness and the lost potential. The others would just sigh and shrug and get to work. Practically habit, now. They’d seen the same skeleton so many times. The girl was a symbol, a warning, an error, and that was all. Nothing had been lost; no one would mourn.

Except Hennessy.

The situation had a peculiar irony. Hennessy had wanted this copy to live. She’d gone through the motions and listened to Jordan and slept with the painting, even though she knew it wouldn’t work. She’d wanted the copy to live, and her half-assed hope had killed the girl instead.

The girl had dragged Hennessy toward the door while she floated, agonized, paralyzed. The girl had wanted to live. She’d fought with every ounce of strength in her shitty body, and she’d held in the scream for as long as she could, and she’d done everything she could do, and the door had not budged, and the water had not receded.

She’d fought. God, how she’d fought.

She’d fought, and none of the struggle even mattered. She should have inhaled quick and drowned peacefully. That would have netted the same results. Drowning was not a peaceful death for those who refused to surrender. The terror as the lungs strained for air, the choking inhalation, the chest-squeezing need, the thrashing desperation. The girl had been killed by the same type of violence that stalked them all. 

The girl had wanted to live.

Hennessy’s greatest sin. None of the copies, alive or dead, had ever wanted survival that badly. None of them had been dreamt with the same reckless hope or yawning terror. Some wanted to live, to thrive, to age. None understood what kind of war Hennessy’s monsters waged.

In a way, it made sense. Hennessy’s copies were perfect mirrors, at least until they weren’t. This one had struggled and clawed and dissolved inside a nightmare. She’d given all she had to give. She’d suffered. She’d died. An exercise in futility.

This was Hennessy’s mirror.

Her girls laid her broken body on a soft mattress, like mourners filling a casket. They drew the blinds, muting the sunlight. They tucked a borrowed phone under her clasped hands, the one concession to normalcy, and they left her alone.

The girls were never gentle with Hennessy, not these days, not with all the blood and sickness and rot on her hands. Jordan was the only one left who cared, and even she couldn’t understand. Hennessy had always been alone. She’d live alone, and she’d die alone, just like her mirror.

The girls had been gentle now.

_It’s all right,_ Hennessy thought, and imagined the new girl’s ghost murmuring. _It’s all right. You tried so hard. You worked so fucking hard. It’s all right. You can rest._

Why else would they bring her to a place she might sleep? Hennessy never allowed herself comfort. She tried to imagine climbing out of bed, and her mind sank closer to the darkness.

She cried. 

There was nothing else to do.

The worst part was this: She would have slept, if it was the last time. She would have canceled the timer and closed her eyes and focused on the press of padding against her ruined back. She would have taken this one comfort and surrendered peacefully, melting into oblivion, spared the splintered agony of her drowned self.

The worst part was this: It was not the last time.

The Lace had unraveled her for over a decade, patient and methodical. It was a persistent, unchanging thing. Hennessy knew the demand, and she knew the cost, and she knew the consequence. But every time she dreamed, she was smaller than the time before. Unloved. Unprotected. Unspooled.

There was a perverse sort of intimacy to its control. _You want to rest,_ the Lace murmured, echoing every desperate subconscious wish she’d ever had. _You’re so tired. Fragile little thing, I could tear you apart right here. No, you ought to_ feel _it. You’re choosing this pain. Your stubbornness means nothing. It changes nothing. You know the rules. Give me what I want. Imagine your body freed from the pain. Imagine the relief of a good night’s sleep. You can awaken whole and safe, little one. All this awfulness, just a bad dream. No? Do you remember the last time? This will be worse._

And a kiss on the neck in farewell.

The Lace never lied. Hennessy sickened worse with every encounter; the dream controlled her reality. The years blurred into a hazy mess of inside-out recollection. She never slept, and she never woke, and she never won.

Jay - Jay the copy, Jay the empty, Jay the drowned - had spoken just like the Lace. She’d nearly won, too. It was hard to resist a mindreader with a familiar face. Mirrors pointed toward each other, reflecting their images a thousandfold.

Hennessy would never give in to the Lace. She’d never unleash that hatred on humanity.

But she might allow a simpler trade. All of the lives she’d created, all of the hope and pain and love and joy and despair, in exchange for the end.

An end to all this fucking madness.

She’d wanted it so badly that her ears rang.

Then she’d killed Jay instead. 

She’d opted out of gun violence, in the end. Instead she’d wrapped her hand through Jay’s hair and dragged her head below the surface. Let her resurface, gasp for air, choke as she submerged again. Hennessy had taken a long time to kill her. Painless death was Jay’s endgame, after all. She’d tormented the girl until she broke. Until she begged.

Even now, even buried by despair, the memory brought cold satisfaction. Hennessy had allowed herself such monstrosity only the once; her indirect kills were products of rage, negligence, and apathy. Jay was the one person she’d killed because of how fucking good it felt.

If only anything else could ever feel that good.

“Is that bullshit?”

Her crying stopped, her eyes flying open, and she met the icy stare of the other dreamer. He didn't look wasted. He didn't even look tired. Nothing like Hennessy.

Just another thing to destroy, in the end.


End file.
